The shape of phones to come…

We hit the world’s biggest mobile tech show to give you a glimpse of the future. Foldable phones were the star turns, but they weren’t the only amazing things on display. Let’s take a closer look…

For phone fans, there’s no better place to be than Barcelona in late February. That’s when MWC (Mobile World Congress) 2019 hits town. It’s the world’s biggest tech show, and it’s a chance for all the major phone manufacturers to wow us with their wares.

We’ve rounded up the show’s highlights below. Think of them as sneak peek into the future of mobile tech. None of these products are available to buy just yet, but hopefully it won’t be too long until they hit these shores…

Foldable phones

We saw some incredible folding phones at MWC, thanks to a huge leap in screen technology that enables screens to be completely flexible. Let’s meet two of the best…

Samsung Galaxy Fold
Samsung announced the release of the Galaxy Fold at its own event prior to MWC. It’s a powerful smartphone/tablet combo, it looks surprisingly sleek, and seemed to fit nicely in the hand as a phone.

The magic happens when it’s folded out, and it transforms from a standard 4.6-inch display to a huge 7.6-inch infinity-flex display.

When it’s open, three app multi-tasking will reportedly let you use three apps at the same time, flawlessly. And it worked well in the demo too. So, next time you’re mid-video and a message comes through, you won’t need to pause it to reply, and you can even browse for more info on the web at the same time.

Samsung says it’ll be able to withstand 1000s of folds and unfolds because of the multiple interlocking-gear design, all hidden for an elegant finish.

The Huawei Mate X 5G
A few days after Samsung’s big reveal, Huawei did its best to steal the show with its own foldable. Meet the Huawei Mate X 5G.

Instead of opening like a book, the screen wraps around the outside of the phone when it’s closed, so it looks a lot like a standard smartphone. But fold it out and you’ve got a full-sized 8-inch tablet! Huawei has packed some serious tech into this phone, including:

Our pick of the non-foldable phones

A 5 lens camera from Nokia
Yes, you read it right, the new Nokia will be rocking a five-lens camera!

It’s called the Nokia 9 PureView and the most striking thing about it is the camera layout on the back of the phone. It has seven dots all arranged in a kind of crop circle design. Five of them are camera lenses, with one flash and a light sensor.

You can really see a passion for photography built into this tech. It offers beautiful shots in simply unrivalled, stunning detail, all with the minimal effort of getting your phone out of your pocket.
The Nokia 9 PureView’s camera setup comes with a range of alternative shooting modes that even the pros would be jealous of, but most notably there’s an atmospheric ‘black and white’ setting, which actually gives you the genuine melancholic effect that’s so characteristic of true black & white photography. It’s something no normal greyscale Instagram filter could achieve.

5G – everybody’s talking

There was a lot of chatter about 5G at MWC, but perhaps not as much action as we expected. After all, 5G isn’t actually with us yet – but a few phone manufacturers still seemed keen to get in there first with their 5G-ready devices, including Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi and LG. Read our dedicated 5G article for more details:

Flexible wearables

As well as some incredible advancements in phone tech, MWC showed is that flexible screens will soon be everywhere. And one of the obvious areas is wearables.

Chinese manufacturer Nubia unveiled its prototype of a smartwatch/phone hybrid called the Nubia Alpha, and we absolutely love it. The screen is integrated into the strap so when you swipe, the menu rolls around your whole wrist. It can do everything a phone can, so you’ll be able to make calls, send texts and take photos on it.

Hopefully, we’ll be seeing more big name manufacturers producing their own flexible wearables wearable tech adopting this approach. We can’t wait to see what the likes of Fitbit, Samsung, and Garmin make of flexible screens.

Over to you, Community tech fans! Are you excited about foldable phones and the awesome power of 5G? Or is there another piece of future mobile tech you’re looking forward to? Post a reply below and share your thoughts.

3 replies

I'm excited to see so many new and innovative devices! I'm particularly interested in the Nokia 9 PureView and it's penta-lens camera, I look forward to comparing the photograph quality to 'standard' single lens camera quality.

I'm also interested in the Nubia hybrid, it will be great to see whether this type of device takes off in popularity, or whether it might totally fail. I'd definitely be up for at least trying it!

Folding screens, I still can't work out if I am excited by that or not.
I love my iPhone (smallish fits in my hand and pocket), I love my ipad, (bigger and lets me watch tv etc at a reasonable size) - but will I love my iFold? You heard that name here first . I think I am going to have to see how this progresses but for now the appeal to me will be only having to buy one device that does 2 jobs, it depends if it works as well as they say. I cant wait until these items get into the shops and I can go and browse to see if they are as good as they sound! Jase

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